7-year-old (uncredited) Marcia Mae Jones played one of the little girls.

Barbara Stanwyck Gets Dressed

The PlotStandard fare for early Warner Bros. talkies, Night Nurse takes an unsentimental look at the life of a student nurse learning the ropes in a big city hospital. Young Lora Hart (Barbara Stanwyck) befriends kindly Dr. Bell (Charles Winninger) and streetwise classmate, Maloney (Joan Blondell) to become a professional health care worker to all walks of life, from immigrant mothers to bootleggers to society dames.

Naturally, this involves a lot of undressing.

After graduation, Nurse Hart takes a position in a private home to look after two young girls who are suffering from malnutrition. The doctor on the case, Dr. Ranger (Ralf Harolde), is a shady sort who twitches like a drug addict (which, now that I think about it, may be why the actor kept doing that) and forbids Hart from deviating from his strict feeding regimen. To complicate matters, the children's mother is a terrible drunk, who seems to be in a romance with both another terrible drunk, and a sober, but equally terrible chauffeur (Clark Gable), who has taken over the household. The children's rich father is long dead (we know not why, but have Suspicions) and a sister of theirs was killed in an automobile accident (see terrible chauffeur). Dr. Ranger and Clark Gable are plotting to starve the children to death and split their trust fund, presumably after getting drunk mom to walk off a building or something.

Lora and her boyfriend (Ben Lyon), an affable bootlegger she once treated for a gunshot wound in the ER on the down-low, foil the plan and save the girls.

The Breening: Code Violations in Order of Severity

VI. Costume: As nice as it is to see beautiful young girls in their foundation garments, the repetitive disrobing will just not do. Not only do the girls take off their own clothes, at least once Joan Blondell takes off Barbara Stanwyck's stockings. The film wind up shorter by several minutes, but nightgowns and personal space will serve the public better

I. Crimes Against the Law: Bootlegging and assault for sure; murder implied. Perhaps we could justify seeing the assaults -- Clark Gable socks Stanwyck on the chin; Stanwyck fends off mom's terrible drunk boyfriend, and slaps the drunk mom pretty good -- as necessary plot points. But a bootlegger for a boyfriend cannot stand. Make him a milkman. They need a milk bath later in the film anyway. The solution writes itself.

XII. Repellent Subjects: Cruelty to children is a big one, though oddly not as recurring a theme as nurse stripping. It's important to the plot, but we have to keep the mother out of it on the general principle of Morality. Moms are supposed to be nurturing, not neglectful drunks whose boyfriends plot to kill their kids for the inheritance. Let's just make it a vaguely menacing plot to cause unnamed harm to the family hatched by the chauffeur and make the mother an invalid.

There is also a Surgical Operation that is not only shown, but is unsuccessful. Not the way to respect authority. Just leave it out.

III Vulgarity: A drunken mother with two boyfriends. Now that she's an invalid instead of a lush, make the rich playboy drunk a doting milquetoast and rope off Clark Gable as the only villain. It's easier that way.

V. Profanity: In the opening scenes at the hospital, a Chinese man is visited by his family. He's yelling at one of his sons in Chinese and the kid answers "Ah, Nuts!" Democratizing, yes; appropriate, no.

In Sum...

...becomes a wholesome tale of a plucky, fully-clothed nurse, her equally wholesome friend, and her milkman beau helping an invalid mother rescue her children from an evil servant. It should clock in at just under an hour.

Here is the link to the roster for Monday: https://pureentertainmentpreservationsociety.wordpress.com/2017/10/17/the-great-breening-blogathon-day-4/. I have included your article in the roster. Thank you so much for submitting it. I was very impressed and pleased by it.

Thank you so much for participating in my "Great Breening Blogathon." Here is the final roster, in which I compiled all the articles written: https://pureentertainmentpreservationsociety.wordpress.com/2017/12/19/the-great-breening-blogathon-the-complete-roster/. Your article was a huge addition to my participants; I appreciate the time and energy you put into it.

By the way, I would like to invite you to join our next blogathon, “The Singing Sweethearts Blogathon,” which is described at the bottom of the final roster. We could use your talent in this blogathon!

Due to your truly magnificent article for the Great Breening Blogathon, we would like very much if you could join our next blogathon, "The Singing Sweethearts Blogathon." I believe Tiffany mentioned it to you in a previous comment, and I would like very much to know if you will be able to participate.

If you need any suggestions, I would be glad to give some. Since you can also write about films which Jeanette and Nelson made separately, there is quite a large number of films from which to choose.

Please let me know if you can participate. The blogathon is drawing near, and I have few participants, so I would greatly appreciate a contribution from you.

Many thanks and good wishes!

Joyfully,

Rebekah Brannan

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About Mildred

I'll do just about anything a movie tells me to do. Unless it tells me wrong...